To the surprise of supporters and opponents alike, the Governor announced last week that he'd like to postpone Proposition 18, the $11 billion water bond set to grace November’s ballot, until the 2012 election. For the Bay Area, postponement will hardly do the job.

Our region generally likes water bonds, which in the past have devoted significant chunks of money to disadvantaged communities, conservation, local water supply projects and other efforts favored by progressives. But this time around, the Bay Area is grappling with a completely different beast. 

Funds from the $11 billion monstrosity would go first to build new dams at the behest of special interests backing the Governor, including agribusinesses and Southern California developers. United Farm Workers came out against the bond in a scathing February op-ed that declared, “We don't believe… giant agriculture corporations should get more subsidized water until farmworkers get the right to protect themselves, including the right to clean and fresh drinking water.”

Additional money from Prop 18 would set in motion the Governor’s vision of developing a peripheral canal around the Delta, a boondoggle effort that was rejected by some 90% of Northern California voters in 1982. Many in Northern California see both the dam and canal efforts as a thinly veiled water grab: Chinatown redux. Neither would reduce the amount of water being taken from the Delta nor the impact of Delta water exports on salmon, steelhead and other fish populations or the coastal communities that depend on them.

Unlike past bonds, Prop 18 would be paid for out of the state’s General Fund, the ever-shrinking pool of money from which education, healthcare, public safety and state park funding must also come. Principal and interest payments on the bond would come to a whopping $800 million a year – enough to employ 12,000 California teachers – and could strain an already frayed state budget to the breaking point.

And where are the benefits for taxpayers, here or anywhere else? Funds for conservation, local water systems and other public-benefit projects are minimal and will only see money after the Governor’s priority projects do, if they see any money at all. Billions of dollars from past voter-approved water bonds are still unspent, as creditors balk at lending the state money and Sacramento legislators veto the projects.

On Tuesday, the Governor blamed the current budget crisis for his decision to push for the bond to be moved to the 2012 ballot. “I believe our focus should be on the budget,” he said. “It's critical that the water bond pass… I will work with the legislature to postpone the bond to 2012 and avoid jeopardizing its passage.”

That’s some interesting framing. Moving the bond to 2012 won’t make its budgetary sucker punch to California’s gut any less swift, nor its approach to water management any less of a bad idea than it is this year. It’s the content of the bond, not the timing, that’s the problem – and it won’t improve with age. “It’s not fine wine,” said opponent Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) on Tuesday. “It’s pork.”

For the Bay Area, the only solution is abandoning the bond and starting over with a new approach - one that will reduce state water demand, improve our drinking and wastewater infrastructure, and bring down the curtain on the Chinatown era of special-interest water grabs at the expense of the rest of us. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors and City Council members from Richmond, Berkeley, Oakland, and Hayward declared as much when they opposed the bond this spring.

Schwarzenegger and water bond supporters may pressure the legislature to postpone Prop 18 before they go on recess tomorrow. That's why it's urgent that Bay Area residents call their legislators in Sacramento today and tell them that stalling a bad bond is a bad idea. We need to repeal the bond, not postpone it. Click here to contact your state legislator.  

Elanor Starmer is the Western Region Director at Food & Water Watch. She has worked as a policy advocate for human rights, sustainable agriculture and family farms. She helped launch a research program on federal policy and factory farming at Tufts  University’s Global Development and Environment Institute. She has a MA in development economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, a MS in agricultural science and policy from Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, and a BA in public policy from Brown University.